The invention has for its object a revolving door whose sidewalls in the arc of a circle are movable. The door according to the invention permits crossing the flows which have different origin and destination and whose elements constituting the flow must not mix.
The invention is applicable particularly to the flow of passengers in airports.
At present, to avoid mixture of the flows, the crossings take place with conventional doors and changes of level.
Under these conditions, the passengers use enormous corridors which are long to avoid crossings. The passengers lose a great deal of time.
The state of the art can be defined by the following patents:
EP-0 365 074: The invention relates to a revolving door provided with a certain number of partitions fixed on a central rotational axle and enclosing two-by-two the compartments. The door permits entering or leaving by an inlet or outlet, means being provided such that, at the outlet position, outlet can be prevented of unauthorized passage by controlling a presence signal and an authorization signal. The presence signal, which can come from a detector, permits detecting the presence of a pedestrian in a compartment. The authorization signal, which can come from a signal generator disposed adjacent or within the interior of a compartment, is controlled by the passenger.
WO 82/02224: Revolving door in which the central rotor is generally of cylindrical form and has a diameter representing at least 0.3 times that of the space separating the fixed walls of the door. Four door panels are articulated on the central rotor and maintained in their normal positions by hydraulic door closure devices, such that these panels can pivot about their articulations toward storage positions along the central rotor and can be deflected when they entrap a user within the door. Radar detectors detect the presence of users entering the door and accelerating the rotation of the door so as to facilitate passage. Proximity detectors disposed on the door panels slow the rotation of the door when a panel begins to-trap a person in the door. Inversion detectors detect the movement toward the rear of a door panel in the reverse direction of rotation of the door (by contact with the user in the door) and stop the rotation of the door when such a contact takes place. Means are also provided to maintain the door in a rotated position in which the four panels coact with immovable sidewalls and to lock the door panels against the lateral walls in storage position.
WO 93/21416: Revolving doors comprise a rotor provided with flaps, which thus create rotating spaces in which a person coming for example from the outside reaches the inside of a store and can leave in the same way. So as to improve the revolving door of this type as to its design and operation, it is provided that each flap of the rotor be designed as a sliding structure and comprise to this effect at least one door element with a slideway sliding in the plane of the flap or along a slideway provided with a constituent radial portion between an open position and a closed position.
WO 94/23167: An improved revolving door comprises a rotating device with a swinging door offset in the direction of its circumference. The pivotal axes of the flaps are located relative to the radial length of the flaps at a minimum distance from the central axis or axis of symmetry, equal to at least 70% of the total length of the flaps. Two flaps can pivot in opposite directions about their pivotal axis between their usual operation position and a position of opening which leaves a free passage.
WO 94/08121: The invention relates to a block chamber with drum doors which is delimited by lateral walls defining laterally a passage and by at least two drum doors which move in a relatively synchronized manner, these drum doors having two flaps turning about corresponding vertical axes of rotation. The flaps of each of the drum doors are disposed in an angular position, one relative to the other, such that the passage is always closed or at least one side. In a first embodiment, there are provided two drum doors whose angles relative to the corresponding longitudinal symmetry line are relatively offset by 90xc2x0. In another embodiment, there can be provided three drum doors or more disposed in the sidewalls of a larger passage.
FR-A-2.560.275: The present invention relates to a lock chamber of access control for vaults, characterized in that it is essentially constituted by an armored rotatable door provided with a passage opening and mounted in an armored framework secured to the inlet opening of the vault by identity control devices and load control devices and measurement of the weight of the rotating door by a strongbox enclosing a drive mechanism for the door and an electronic control circuit for the assembly connected to the various control and command devices for the drive mechanism, and fixed on the framework, and by a manual unlocking device for the door, this latter having three stop positions, namely, a rest position, an intermediate identity and verification of the weight control position, and an access position to the vault.
GB 1,223,699 (BRITISH EUROPEAN AIRWAYS): this patent discloses a rotating door with a central column, the mechanism controlling the flaps being located in the central column and in the upper portion of the revolving door. The flaps are comprised of sectors, said sectors are connected to a through member which passes through from side to side the rotating door according to its diameter and which connects two sectors forming a flap. Moreover, other sectors are movable and can, by sliding, open or close the passages to the flow as indicated in FIGS. 4 to 5. In no case is it suggested or described that the flaps can open or close by extension or compression in the lateral direction.
EP 0 296 134: This patent discloses a door device provided for a single direction of flow. Each door is essentially constituted to avoid any risk of air current. There is not, as indicated in the invention, a crossing of the flows. This is moreover not the object of the invention. Similarly, there is not disclosed or even suggested the opening and closing of passages by extensible or compressible flaps in the width direction.
All these patents disclose devices to control the access of a person or goods in a vault constituted by a rotating door. Other devices relate to rotating doors whose flaps can orient or retract to leave the passage free.
These rotating doors do not coact with lateral walls in the arc of a circle to open or close the passages to prevent the mixing of the flows at the point of crossing, the mixture of the constituent elements is specific to each flow.
However, crossing is the necessary point of meeting between the two elements which have different origin and destination and which circulate in the same plane.
So as to avoid meeting or mixing of the flows, it is necessary to change the level of one of the flows and to cause the flows to circulate on different planes.
The invention tends to solve this problem.
It permits crossing, at a same point and hence in a same plane, at least two flows without each of these flows being able to mix.
To this end, the rotating door according to the invention is of the type of at least two flaps and at least three sidewalls in the arc of a circle, disposed facing one or several access paths, at the periphery of the rotating door, said door is adapted to cause the flows to cross which have a different origin and destination and whose elements constituting the flows must not mix.
Control means act on the passage of the flaps to deploy or retract said lateral walls in the form of an arc of a circle which open or close the access to the paths by permitting a deployment of said lateral walls by extension or a closure or retraction by compression.
The lateral walls in the form of an arc of a circle are of the type of vertical folds permitting a deployment by extension or closing or retraction by compression.
According to a particular embodiment, the sidewalls in the form of an arc of a circle are suspended on a roller track which serves as a slideway.
According to one embodiment, control means acting on the passage of the flaps to deploy or retract the lateral walls in the form of an arc of a circle are hooking means or unhooking means disposed at the level of peripheral ends of the flaps, the movement of the flaps thereby ensuring the opening or the closure of the different access paths by deploying or retracting said lateral walls in the arc of a circle.
Hooking or unhooking means are electromagnets.
The hooking and unhooking means of the lateral walls in the arc of a circle coact with other means serving as a stop abutment which are disposed at the head of the vertical walls separating the paths, these means serving as an abutment actuating the stopping or the sliding of the lateral walls in an arc of a circle which are suspended on a circular slideway in the upper portion of the rotating door.
The deployment or retraction of the lateral walls in the form of an arc of a circle takes place progressively as a function of the speed of rotation of the rotating door.
According to one embodiment, the side doors in the form of an arc of a circle descend from the ceiling or detract by rising in the ceiling above the door. Said rotating door comprises above its ceiling a frame and a superstructure adapted to receive above the door the lateral partitions which rise and which descend whilst turning at the same time as the door.